Sheryl Sandberg’s Breakthrough Hug With Mark Zuckerberg

We’ve posted our take on Sheryl Sandberg‘s new book, a treatise on getting more women to the top of corporate America. And while Sandberg had much to say about that, the book also dishes out plenty of fun little details and anecdotes. Here’s a few of our favorites:

The Geithner Connection: In the book’s acknowledgements, Sandberg spends a paragraph thanking her family, including “my goddaughter Elise Geithner.” Yep, that’s the daughter of former Treasury secretary (and new NYC-based CFR fellow) Tim Geithner. In the search for a godmother, Geithener not only found in Sandberg a pretty ideal role model for young women, but one more capable of keeping a loving eye on his daughter as she studies out West at Stanford.

Working at Facebook: “I loved it, except on days when coworkers said things like ‘Sheryl, can you look at this? We need to know what old people will think of this feature’”

Can women really….?: No, they can’t, Sandberg says. “Having it all is best regarded as a myth”

Google‘s early days: Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked from an office that was “really just a large room with toys, gadgets and clothes strewn all over the floor”

Mark Zuckerberg as a boss: He might have been just seven years old when she graduated from Harvard, but he gave her feedback she still remembers. “One of the things he told me was that my desire to be liked by everyone would hold me back. He said that when you want to change things, you can’t please everyone. If you do please everyone, you aren’t making enough progress.”

Turning down LinkedIn: One thing you might not know about Sandberg: “In the summer of 2006, a tiny start-up called LinkedIn was looking for a new CEO, and Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s founder, reached out to me. I thought it was a great opportunity, and after five years in the same position at Google I was ready for a new challenge. But the timing was tricky. I was thirty-seven years old and wanted to have a second child. I told Reid the truth: regrettably, I had to pass…”

And Zuckerberg as a friend: Soon after joining Facebook, someone began spreaking a nasty rumor about Sandberg. “I started telling Mark about it and, despite my best efforts, started to cry. He assured me that the accusation was so untrue that no one could possibly believe it. And then he asked, ‘do you want a hug?’ I did. It was a breakthough moment for us.”